Private fleets facing a stubborn shortage of qualified truck drivers are increasingly treating safety as a retention problem as much as a compliance one, with operators focusing on coaching and intervention rather than simply replacing people who fall short.
That message came through strongly at the International Foodservice Distributors Association’s 2026 Solutions Conference in San Antonio, where Hayden Cardiff of Descartes and Tim Eckhardt of Dot Foods argued that the indu...
Continue Reading This Article
Enjoy this article as well as all of our content, including reports, news, tips and more.
By registering or signing into your SRM Today account, you agree to SRM Today's Terms of Use and consent to the processing of your personal information as described in our Privacy Policy.
stry’s old playbook no longer works. With hiring pools thin and litigation costs rising, fleets can no longer assume a driver who proves difficult to manage can just be swapped out for another.
At Dot Transportation, the transport arm of Dot Foods, that shift has led to a more data-led approach to safety. Eckhardt said the company has moved away from relying on instinct and paper trails to identify risk, and now uses scoring systems, telematics and camera data to spot emerging problems earlier. Dot Foods is North America’s largest food industry redistributor and less-than-truckload consolidator, and its transport operation runs a large fleet across the US and Canada.
Rather than trying to coach every flagged event, Dot concentrates on the drivers showing the greatest risk. Eckhardt said the company typically focuses on the bottom 10% to 20% of performers, although that group changes as individual behaviour improves or worsens. Drivers scoring above 70 on a 0-to-100 scale are placed on formal development plans and monitored more closely.
Those plans can involve training, ride-alongs, one-to-one coaching or technology interventions tailored to a specific behaviour. Where speeding remains a persistent issue, for example, Dot may electronically govern a vehicle to reduce the chance of repeat offences. Eckhardt said the aim is not simply to reprimand drivers, but to use whatever tools are available to change behaviour before a crash occurs.
The company’s approach reflects a broader industry trend. According to FreightWaves, rising accident litigation costs and the threat of so-called nuclear verdicts have pushed fleets towards more proactive safety systems. A related report from MGN said private operators are increasingly investing in technology-driven coaching because underperforming drivers are harder to replace in a shallow labour market.
Dot’s broader safety strategy also includes predictive tools. Truck News reported that Dot Transportation has been piloting a fatigue management platform from Fatigue Science, designed to forecast when drivers may be at elevated risk of fatigue before or during a shift. The aim, like the company’s wider safety programme, is to intervene early rather than react after an incident.
Eckhardt stressed that timing matters. Coaching is most effective when managers address unsafe behaviour quickly, while the event is still fresh, rather than waiting weeks or months. He also said the tone of the conversation must vary according to the driver: a veteran with decades of experience may respond differently from a newcomer still learning the company’s expectations.
Transparency has become another pillar of Dot’s programme. Eckhardt said the company is more open with drivers about accident costs, the logic behind safety policies and the reasons cameras and other technologies are installed in cabs. Managers also use footage to recognise good decisions, not only to identify mistakes, helping to separate development from discipline.
That relationship-based approach matters, he said, because trust can be damaged quickly if a driver’s first meaningful interaction with a manager is a reprimand. The challenge becomes even greater when supervisors are stretched too thin; Eckhardt suggested coaching works best when each manager oversees around 70 to 80 drivers, rather than 150.
Dot has also linked safety performance to pay. Eckhardt said its quarterly safety bonus now accounts for nearly 10% of driver income, giving employees a direct financial incentive to meet safety targets. When asked about return on investment, he said the calculation is straightforward: a technology spend of $250,000 can be justified if it helps avoid even one serious crash of comparable cost.
The company continues to review additional tools as well, including possible systems to limit cellphone use, though Eckhardt said practical and legal issues remain unresolved. Dot currently allows drivers to use phones because over-the-road employees need to stay in touch with family while away from home.
The fleet’s safety culture extends beyond active drivers. Dot Transportation says it operates a multi-week training programme for all drivers, regardless of experience, and the company has highlighted milestone achievements by long-serving drivers as part of its effort to recognise safe performance. It also runs a warehouse-to-driver pathway aimed at helping workers earn a commercial licence after gaining experience in the company’s distribution network.
For Dot, the biggest change has not been technological so much as cultural. The company’s message to drivers is that safety rules, monitoring systems and coaching programmes are intended to support them, not catch them out. In a market where good drivers are hard to find and expensive to lose, that may be the most practical route to keeping fleets safe.
Source: Noah Wire Services
